Undead War (Dead Guns Press)

by Thompson, John

  She stumbled back to the van and locked the doors. A long time later, she dozed, her head resting lightly on the passenger side window glass. They were facing east; pink had just started to bleed through the wet velvet sky.

  * * *

  The heat woke Sarah; she'd slept through the morning temperature dip and the sun was higher in the sky than she liked.

  Deedee moaned. Sarah slipped between the seats and went to her, grabbing the water bottle as she went, to swish out her mouth.

  “Baby,” Deedee muttered.

  Sarah stretched around the bungee cord and took Deedee's hand. It was cool to the touch―another bad sign.

  “Your baby's fine,” she whispered.

  Deedee opened her eyes. She gazed up at Sarah from below heavy lids, the bottoms of her eyes red and bloodshot. Somewhere in their glittering black depths, Sarah thought she saw a red dot, sign of the last stages of the virus. She dropped Deedee's hand.

  “Coming,” Deedee whispered. Her eyes rolled back and she groaned, her breath in short, laboured chugs. Her hands twisted and flapped against the van's seats.

  “Holy shit,” Sarah yelled. “Taz! Wake up!”

  Sarah scrabbled backward on all fours, her eyes locked on Deedee's face. She'd only seen one other person die of a bite, but she wasn't taking any chances. She found the first aid kit and pulled out a pair of gloves. The van's previous owner had left an old work shirt in the back of the van; she pulled it on backwards, reminded of finger painting in kindergarten.

  “It's coming,” Sarah yelled at Taz. She heard the driver's side door slam. A moment later, the side door slid open.

  “Should we take her outside?”

  “No. Give me your knife.”

  Taz dug in his pockets and slapped his Swiss Army knife into Sarah's outstretched hand.

  “I think she's about done,” Sarah said to Taz as she moved forward on her knees. She cut off Deedee's underwear and tossed them out the van.

  “How so?”

  “Her eyes,” Sarah said.

  Deedee drew her legs up, half-sitting. She bellowed, a deep growl that faded down into a snarl.

  “Taz, she's crowning,” Sarah cried. The flesh around Deedee's vagina had stretched out tight in a pulsing crimson ring; Sarah could see the baby's head push through, then retreat slightly. She folded the blanket beneath Deedee's hips, wishing she had something more clean and sanitary.

  “What, I thought these things took hours, sometimes days,” Taz replied. She could hear him digging in the tool box, metal items clanking against each other.

  “I don't fucking know!” Sarah said as Taz moved back to the front.

  “This is the reason I never had kids!” Sarah wailed.

  Taz snorted laughter.

  Sarah placed her hand under the baby's head, now halfway out of the birth canal. She glanced at Deedee's face; it had gone ashen and her lips curled back from her teeth. Deedee snapped her mouth open and shut, her head lolling as if on bearings.

  The sliding door opened; Taz stood beside the van.

  “I hope you have that shotgun ready,” Sarah said in Taz' direction.

  “Seriously?”

  Sarah gave a curt nod. She forced Deedee's legs as far apart as they would go. Tentatively, she tried to push on the pregnant woman's abdomen, praying the baby wouldn't get stuck. Through the gloves, Sarah felt the infected woman's muscles contract and her hips bear down―that, at least, seemed to be instinctive.

  Sarah guided the baby's head the rest of the way out, then hesitated. She took a deep breath and plunged her fingers into the birth canal, found the baby's little birdwing shoulders, and pulled as gently as she could. The baby slid out in a whoosh of blood and mucus, followed by the brown and purple glut of Deedee's afterbirth. After a tense moment, Sarah gave a yank and the baby's feet came free, bent at a weird angle. Sarah straightened up the limbs so they felt right, then cut the cord clumsily with Taz' Swiss Army knife and patted the baby on the back. He―for it was a he, his tiny penis like a fingertip―took in a great rush of air and started to cry, his face screwed up with righteous anger. His little fists pumped.

  The blanket was soaked through with Deedee's blood and bodily fluids, which still leaked from between her legs. Careful to avoid touching any of the slop, Sarah crab-walked backward a safe distance, shrugging off the work shirt as she went. She set the baby down, sat back on her haunches and stripped off the gloves, tossing them out the van door. She then pulled off her T-shirt. She was wearing a sports bra underneath, its white ribbing soaked a dingy gray with sweat. She swaddled the baby loosely in her shirt and carefully moved toward the sliding door, her hand under his strong little neck. When one hip bumped the frame, she swung her feet around and set her boots down on gravel, looking at the squalling baby the whole time. He seemed normal, she thought, as she stepped out into the heat.

  Sarah walked to the back of the van and set the baby down again as she found the first aid kit. She poured rubbing alcohol onto a compress, then thought better of it and poured water from the bottle over the sopping fabric. After putting on fresh gloves, Sarah grabbed a couple of cotton swabs, then scooped up the baby and went a little way from the van to clean the blood and fluids from him.

  “Well,” she said in a soft, sing-song voice. “Just what are we to do with you?”

  She jumped at the sound of the shot behind her. The corners of her mouth turned down.

  “Everything's OK, little one,” she cooed. “Everything's gonna be all right.” A lump welled in her throat and hot tears stung the corners of her eyes. She sniffled, but they didn't fall.

  She hummed some song from her own babyhood. The baby's cries slowed at the sound of her voice. Sarah wiped him down and swabbed his nose and ears clear of any fluids. Wishing she had soap, she slipped off one glove and touched the tip of her finger to the baby's lips.

  He suckled at it.

  Sarah laughed. “I guess this isn't so hard,” she whispered. “We have to get you some formula. Or maybe carnation-milk.” That's what her mum had always called condensed, canned milk. It was the Newfie in her.

  Sarah stood at the side of the road, her finger in the baby's mouth and the sound of cicadas in her ears. She could feel his damp little tongue, and the tiny ridges that would later become teeth.

  The baby's suckling grew more forceful.

  Sarah looked into his face. His eyelids slowly crept up, and she saw the unmistakable red rims. The pupils threatened to overtake the baby's irises, a tiny red dot of infection deep in their depths. The sucking in her finger grew into a frenzied chomping. With no teeth, the infected baby couldn't break the skin.

  In her horror, Sarah shrieked and dropped the infant to the ground, where his little limbs struggled inside her T-shirt. Frantically, Sarah wiped her damp fingers on the rough denim of her jeans.

  As Sarah watched, the baby flailed and found the strength to flip himself over, his insatiable urge to feed forcing the little body forward. His head lolled as he pulled himself toward Sarah's feet in a sickening, slow-motion crawl. Sarah shrieked again.

  “What the hell, woman, you dropped him?!” Taz' voice from behind her.

  “Noooo, uh uh,” Sarah said and pointed at the infant with one shaking hand. Her stomach turned over and bile rose hot in the back of her throat.

  The world started to spin faster; noxious black waves threatened to take her.

  “Holy Jesus in heaven,” she heard Taz grunt. His footsteps faded.

  Choking, Sarah took a step backward from the advancing thing and fumbled at the gun holster on her belt. As she took aim with both hands, she noticed a line of drool and gravel on the baby's chin. She moaned in revulsion and cocked the hammer.

  The shot was loud and the pistol's kick thrummed through Sarah's hands, but the kill was clean. The infant's head caved into its chin and the vile thing stopped moving mid-swim.

  Sarah turned her head up and hollered at the sky. Her tears broke like a flash storm in summer, brief and viol
ent, and she gave in to darkness.

  * * *

  The sun was much lower toward the horizon when Taz shook her awake.

  “Have a drink of water, sweetheart,” he said in a low voice.

  Sarah felt the bottle at her lips and pulled herself up on one elbow. She took the water bottle from Taz and drank. She was still lying on the shoulder where she'd fallen. Taz's leathery face loomed over her, his blue eyes almost disappearing in their lines of concern. She waved him away and he backed up as she pulled herself into a sitting position, her back against the van.

  “Where's the...?” Sarah couldn't quite bring herself to ask.

  Taz grunted heavily and sat down beside her.

  “We're gonna hafta bury 'em, after I rest a bit. My back's achin' and my old dogs are barkin',” he said, taking the water bottle from her. He wiped the top off with his shirttail and drained it, the plastic edges crinkling.

  “Need to get more water,” he said, tossing it away. “And we have to ditch this van.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “I did what I could to clean up, with the water and the rubbing alcohol. Most of it ended up on the blanket,” Taz said. “And I dug the, you know...” Taz waved a hand.

  “You didn't get any of that on you, didja?”

  Sarah shook her head and peered a little way out at an couple of humps in the dirt. The shapes hadn't been there the night before. It was impossible, but Sarah imagined she could see Deedee's feet, poking out the edge of the dirty blanket.

  “Oh.”

  “I don't think they're coming back, but they might bring something else out.” Taz sounded apologetic.

  “Well, I'm not tired. Do you want me to wake you in a bit?”

  “Sure, hon.”

  Sarah scrambled up. She rested a hand against the van for balance. Taz pulled himself to his feet, and Sarah could hear his knees pop. He stretched with a little groan.

  “Thank you for taking care of this,” Sarah said.

  “Welcome,” Taz muttered. He touched Sarah's shoulder, then turned and went around to the driver's side of the van.

  Sarah needed to stretch her legs. She wandered from one end of the van to the other. At one point, she looked at the clock on the dash. Still 00:00. It might be that forever.

  To pass the time, Sarah thought about how she and Taz―his real name was Donnie―met. She'd just been kicked out of the radio station and forced to walk home. There was no bus and no one available to give her a ride, so she called the answering service, hoping one of the tow truck drivers would be out. Taz came to her aid, and fought off one of the infected at the same time. He was a wreck, just having put down his wife and teenage daughter. Poor guy. Sarah suspected that was the real reason he'd insisted they pick up Deedee, but she didn't want to ask.

  The answering service was a block from a graveyard and three blocks from a hospital. No one there stood a chance; same with Sarah's apartment, although they'd braved it until things got too hairy in town. The tow truck had a radio and a police scanner; a dozen times a day, Taz had gone outside to try and find a signal. After a few days of indecision, they'd agreed to try their luck and head East―he'd heard a faint call from the Capitol.

  If that didn't pan out, they'd keep moving. Sarah had always wanted to see the Atlantic.

  The tow truck came in handy along the way, as Taz moved cars where they blocked the highway. When the tow truck heaved its transmission and died just past Courtice, she and Taz had set out on foot, until they found the Safari with the rear seats out. They'd been driving since then, looking for anybody. It was slow going, around wrecks of whole caravans and the infected that were still mobile.

  Sarah paced and daydreamed about Jael. They'd been together a long time, talked about getting married, even made an invitation list. Then, Jael was diagnosed with cervical cancer―she found it ironic, given her largely cock-less existence. It was too far gone to fight―they gave her six months, and she'd struggled on for nine, death claiming her long before civilization went belly up. In retrospect, it was the easier option.

  Sarah remembered the last nights in the hospital, when Jael, barely able to lift her head, patted an invitation on the hospital bed. Sarah lay on her side, her arms around Jael, and thought how frail she'd become, gushing from every orifice while all that smooth muscle wasted into bone and cannibalized itself.

  That word.

  Sarah put death out of her mind and stared in the direction of Deedee's final resting place. She could just see the outline of the grave mounds. It turned her stomach. She went pee behind the van and used the last of the rubbing alcohol to sanitize her hands. When she was done, she went to wake Taz.

  Sarah moved toward the mounds in the dirt while Taz got the shovel from the back.

  “Let's get this done,” Taz said, joining her at the site.

  Wordlessly, they tumbled the bodies into their graves, one much smaller and deeper than the other, and shoveled crumbling dirt over them. Sarah was surprised at her tears.

  “Don't pity them, darlin',” Taz said gruffly. “Save it for the living.”

  “They were human once,” Sarah replied, and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

  She felt Taz' hand, damp and heavy on her shoulder, and she gasped.

  “Sorry,” Taz muttered and withdrew.

  “No, that's OK,” Sarah said. “Sunburn. I'm just noticing it now.” She waved a hand at her shoulder. The gesture made her aware she was still in her sports bra, and she crossed her arms. She was surprised that she could feel her ribs, and couldn't remember what or when she'd last eaten.

  Taz looked at the ground. “I feel like we should say something,” he said. He kicked at the untouched grass beside the freshly turned earth.

  Sarah looked down at the burial mounds in the high grass, away from the road. A farm sat on either side of the highway, looking ramshackle and forlorn in the gathering dusk.

  “I'm trying to remember that part in the Bible, the one that says in the midst of life we are in death,” Sarah said. “I think it's fitting.”

  To her surprise, Taz intoned “In the midst of life we are in death. Of whom may we seek for succor, but of thee, O Lord? Deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.”

  “Where’d you learn that?”

  “Lapsed Anglican,” Taz replied with a shrug. “They read it at my grandma's funeral.” He swung the shovel over his shoulder.

  They turned and walked back to the van together. Sarah found her pack, stowed between the passenger seat and the door well, as far as Taz could get it from the splotch of blood and goo, all that was left of poor Deedee and her son. She dug a tank top out, yanked it on over her head, then slid off her jeans and pulled on clean shorts. She tossed her dirty clothes out of the van, along with the old work shirt. The garments lay limp and stained on the gravel, like road kill.

  She stuffed down the clean clothes that threatened to burst out of the pack. With a last glance at the black splotches of drying fluids, Sarah slid the side door shut, wincing at the harsh rasp of metal on metal.

  She climbed into the passenger side and slammed the door. The passenger seat was hot vinyl and stuck to the backs of her thighs.

  Taz, flipping channels, had found a weak, tinny broadcast. He sat staring at the radio as Sarah made herself comfortable, not moving or talking.

  Sarah opened the glove box and pulled out a granola bar; she'd stuffed a few of them there among the van's insurance and ownership papers. She chewed as she listened to the radio and began to feel something like normal, if that was possible.

  “Everything they told you is a lie,” the voice, too far away to tell its gender or veracity. “It's not just a bite that transmits the virus! Watch for signs. Insatiable thirst, and hunger.”

  Sarah heard the click of the shotgun and stopped chewing. She turned to face Taz, her stomach roiling. She swallowed the bite of granola and it threatened to stick in her throat.

  “You said you didn't get any on you,” Taz mut
tered. He held the shotgun in both hands, partially cocked, but wasn't pointing it directly at Sarah. Yet.

  “I swear to God, I didn't!” Sarah said, her voice barely a whisper. She wrapped up the granola bar and tossed it back in the glove box and slammed the door. It popped open and she glanced guiltily at the stash of bars with their shiny green and yellow wrappers.

  “I feel fine, honest, I swear on my mother's grave!” In a lapse back to her school days, Sarah crossed her heart with her right hand and held it pinky up. The sweat that slid down the back of her neck had nothing to do with the August heat wave. A small dribble of urine dampened her underwear; good thing she'd peed not too long ago, she thought wildly. She glanced at the clock on the dash.

  00:00

  “Shit,” Sarah whispered. She stared at the face she'd gotten used to seeing every day, normally so open and friendly, now closed and accusatory. His shoulders were set and he seemed broader, bigger than the space he occupied in the driver's seat. Sarah felt like she was collapsing on herself, as if someone had let the air out of her. She could feel her shoulders hunch and a line of tension across her back.

  For what seemed like hours, the only sound in the van was the tinny voice and underneath that, their breathing, Taz' slow and heavy, Sarah's quick and light, almost hyperventilating.

  “Did you get any on you?” Sarah asked in a low voice.

  That seemed to break the spell. Taz lunged forward. Sarah cringed back, but all he did was hit the power button on the radio. The tinny voice stopped mid-sentence. He released the pump and set the shotgun down in its accustomed place.

  “Oh, God Jesus, what the fuck are we gonna do?” Taz moaned. He took off his baseball cap and rubbed a hand over his head. While Sarah watched from the passenger seat, Taz shrank, changed from the looming beast who might kill her, to a broken, beaten man. He put his head down on the steering wheel and began to cry.

  “I don't know, Taz. The only thing I can think is to keep moving.”